fcEYLON BRANCH — ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



natives had to serve the Company and burdens to bear, which 

 precluded the opportunity of receiving regular instruction ; that 

 the headmen were great obstacles to the moral improvement of 

 the people. The other reasons which they specify have already 

 been mentioned. 



About this time the subject of <4 the separation or combina- 

 tion of the two Sacraments," as it was termed, was seriously 

 discussed in the Synod of Holland ; and the opinion of the clergy 

 in the different colonies was requested. The subject regarded 

 converts from heathenism to Christianity, whether adult candi- 

 dates for baptism should net invariably be required to observe 

 the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper also and simultaneously 

 and whether the observance of the • latter should not be the con-J 

 dition of receiving the former. The question arose from the 

 discrepancy between the many baptized and the few who com- 

 municated ; and the object was to introduce some uniformity of 

 practice in the colonies. The Ceylon clergy thought, as far as 

 this colony was concerned, an unqualified union impracticable 5 

 that it would occasion the overthrow of all that had hitherto 

 been done for the advancement of native Christianity ; that if 

 they rejected adult candidates for baptism unless they partook 

 also immediately of the Lord's Supper, these persons would in- 

 variably apply to the itinerant, so called Roman Catholic priests, 

 who were to be found in every village, baptizing indiscrimi- 

 nately all who would consent ; whereby a wide door would be 

 opened to popery ; and the clergy be subject to great difficul- 

 ties whenever children were brought to them for baptism by 

 parents who made the application on the ground of their own 

 baptism by a Romish priest, but which they could not verify y 

 not being furnished with certificates by those priests. They ad- 

 mitted that the number of baptized natives was great, and that 

 of members disproportionately small, but they denied that the 

 two Sacraments were altogether separated, as their Bataviara 

 brethren had made it appear. The great number of the former 



